


Distress

by Winter_of_our_Discontent



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Always Female Sam, And a better parent than John Winchester will ever be, Dean's still male, Gen, Genderbending, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Mentions of Substance Abuse, Pre-Canon, Weechesters, mentions of canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-28
Updated: 2014-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-06 13:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1859280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_of_our_Discontent/pseuds/Winter_of_our_Discontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John mentions cutting Samantha's hair, he's unprepared for the tantrum that follows. But since he's got a Rougarou to kill, he's leaving Dean to deal with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Distress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reluctantabandon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reluctantabandon/gifts).



> Dean is twelve-ish, Sam is eight-ish.

"Dean, watch your sister while I'm gone." John ruffled Dean's hair, then turned to his daughter. "Samantha, listen to your brother, stay out of trouble." John moved to pat her on the head as well. "Hair's getting too long, I'll have to cut it when I get back." He added, teasingly, "Don't worry, I'll clean the blood off the knife first."

 

Samantha ducked back from his hand and burst into tears, wailing like the banshee he'd taken out a few months back.

 

"What is it?" John asked, annoyed. "You two know the drill."

 

"Dun wanna cut my hair!" Samantha screamed. Dean looked between them briefly before enfolding his little sister tightly in a hug.

 

"We've been over this too. Short hair is safer. Monsters can't grab you by hair you don't have." Shorter hair also meant that his youngest, who mostly wore her brother's hand-me-down's, got mistaken for a boy half the time, which didn't sit right with John but was a hell of a lot easier for not getting odd looks from the locals. He said a silent prayer to Mary, hoping she'd understand the necessity of all the choices he'd had to make.

 

He should've had two sons. Dean was, for the most part, stoic and obedient, but Samantha tended to be argumentative and emotional. John considered, again, if it would be worth just dropping his daughter off with Ellen for a while, which he was sure as hell planning to do when she hit... a certain age... and needed to know about certain things.

 

John crossed his arms and glared down at them. "The longer I'm here dealing with you two, the more people the Rougarou could be out there killing. Do you want to be responsible for their deaths?"

 

"No, sir," Dean responded immediately.

 

Samantha took a few seconds more to let out a sulky "No."

 

John nodded, satisfied by their capitulation. He could deal with his daughter's attitude when he got back; right now he had bigger targets in his sights. "Right. Dean, deal with your sister, I'll see you in a week."

 

***

 

As soon as their father had closed the motel door, Dean rushed to lock it and secure the deadbolt and chain. He traced the perimeter of the room to make sure the salt lines were intact and protective and that the seals in the window frames were carved right. Dad had done them all last night, but his lines were sometimes sloppy when he'd been drinking, and besides, it was all Dean's responsibility now to take care of that kinda stuff.

 

Satisfied they were safe for the time being, he returned to his sister, whose crying had, as usual, gone down a lot once Dad had left.

 

"I don't wanna cut my hair, Dean. I wanna be pretty like Mom."

 

Dean wrapped his arms around her and planted a kiss on the top of her head. "You are as pretty as Mom. Prettier. You look just like her." It wasn't a lie, exactly. Dean's memories had gotten fuzzier as he'd gotten older, until he wasn't always sure if he was remembering her, or Dad's stories about her; his memories of her face and voice being slowly lost to the flat, single picture of her that Dad carried around. But he remembered her warmth, and her smiles, and Sammy's smiles made him feel just as warm as Mom's had.

 

She sniffled. "I want long hair. Like a princess. ‘M not a boy."

 

"We have a whole week before Dad gets back, Sam-Sam," Dean said, and while they both knew that the week was a guess and not a promise, Dad's estimates were rarely too long. "I'll think of something, okay?"

 

He let go of her and crossed the room to rifle through his backpack. "Right now, though, why don't we see if there are any cartoons on?" He pulled out an only slightly squished Snickers bar he'd swiped from the gas station yesterday and tossed it to her underhand. "And we can split this." She caught it easily, because his little sister was awesome like that.

 

Luckily one of the channels had Scooby-Doo on, which meant he could sit on the bed next to a cheerfully distracted Samantha while Dean tried to figure out how he could fix things so Sammy and Dad could both be happy.

  
  


***

 

It was summer, so no one looked at them weird for being out during the day. The librarian even smiled when they went in and asked for the kids section. Dean left Samantha there, reading Harry Potter under strict instructions not to leave until he came to get her, and went exploring on his own. Luckily all that researching he did with Dad made him pretty good with a card catalog.

 

The books he found had diagrams, so he snuck the best of them into a bathroom and quietly tore out maybe a dozen pages, folding them in half and stuffing them carefully in his waistband under his shirt. He knew Sammy’d make faces at him if she knew he was hurting books, but Dad had only left so much money, and even spending the cash it would take to make copies was too risky.

 

Step two was hands on training. Dean was way better at figuring stuff out if he could see it in person. There wasn’t a huge rush, though, so he went back to the kids section and sat with his sister for a while, reading Avengers comics while she read about wizards.

 

The bell rang when they entered the beauty salon, and Dean tried not to look as awkward as he felt. When their dad got a haircut, he went to hole in the wall barbershop places, not… someplace like this. But it said they did haircuts for the whole family, and he knew how to size up a mark.

 

He leaned over to Samantha and whispered “Be ready to cry, okay?” She nodded, biting her lip nervously. She  was kinda shy around strangers.

 

“Hi!” he said to the lady behind the counter.

 

She looked over and around them as though expecting their parents to materialize before finally giving up and addressing Dean directly. “Hey there, sugar. What can I do for you?”

 

“This is my sister, Hermione. Our mom died when we were really young, and Dad… he’s a great dad, but he doesn’t know anything about girl hair. So I was hoping you could show me how to braid it, so I could help out?” Dean gave his best, winningest smile, and nudged Sammy, who’d managed to tear up a bit at the mention of their mother. “I can pay!” he added, pulling out a crumpled wad of bills and change from his pocket. “I’ve been saving up my allowance.” It was actually just ten of their worst looking one dollar bills he’d balled up just for this purpose, as well as every single penny he had, but she didn’t need to know that.

 

Her eyes had softened at the mention of their mother, and she had no chance of surviving the lethal Winchester-smile-and-puppy-eyes combined assault.

 

She smiled at them and Dean mentally pumped one of his fists in the air. “Sure, sweetie, I don’t have any appointments for another hour. And you just put away that money, you save it for the ice cream truck.”

  
  


***

 

John arrived back at the motel just after dusk, ten days after he’d left it, exhausted and covered in dirt and bits of Rougarou. He hadn’t even been able to stop for a drink someplace, looking like he did, and all he wanted to do was shower and change so he could hit a bar for the drink he’d earned.

 

He gave the code knock and waited for Dean to unbolt and open the door.

 

“Dad!” Dean said, excited, Samantha a step behind him. “Did you gank it?” Then Dean’s eyes turned businesslike and he could feel himself being examined. “You get any injuries?”

 

“Did you save everyone?” Samantha chimed in.

 

Heedless of the mess he’d make of their clothing, since they’d need to do laundry tomorrow anyways, John pulled his children close to him. It was good, sometimes, to have this reminder of why it was so important that he went Hunting. Maybe he’d stay in tonight, just have a whiskey here instead.

 

“Hey you two,” he said, smiling. “Everything go okay while I was gone?”

 

“Yes sir,” they chorused.

 

“Good to hear,” he said, releasing them. “I’m gonna go take a shower now, get changed.”

 

“Uh, before you do, sir… I figured out a solution for Sammy’s hair, sir,” Dean said, standing in an unconscious imitation of John’s parade rest. “I’ve learned how to do braids, so she can grow her hair out and I’ll brush it and braid it so it stays out of the way. It won’t be a problem. And we figured out that if she has bobby pins on her, she can totally use them to jimmy locks.”

 

John looked over at his daughter. Now that he was getting a good look at Samantha he could see that her hair was arranged into several complicated looking braids circling tightly around the crown of her head. “That right?”

 

She nodded proudly, adding, “Watch!” Dean went into the bathroom and locked it. Samantha immediately went over and began poking at it with a bobby pin she’d pulled from her braid halo. The door sprang open a few seconds later, and Dean emerged triumphant.

 

“I figure we can start her on motel rooms and handcuffs pretty soon.”

 

“And you did that?” John asked, pointing at her hair.

 

Dean nodded. “Been practicing that too. It’s ‘useful for the development of hand-eye coordination’.”

 

John smiled. They were good kids. Clever, like Mary. “Okay, we’ll try your way, at least for now.”

 

His son and daughter looked at each other and grinned.

 

“While I’m in the shower, Dean, why don’t you order us some pizza and pour me a glass of whiskey, and after I get out I’ll tell you both all about how I killed that Rougarou.”

 

They were good kids, his Dean and his Samantha.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Nan (reluctantabandon) after one too many late night conversations; I now have very elaborate headcanons for Dean and/or Sam as girls.
> 
> Though I still can't imagine a universe where John isn't a crap parent.


End file.
